Wit and wisdom of 'Casanova' comes with some debatable market advice

If the financial shenanigans that led to our economic meltdown still make your eyes glaze over, David Isaacson's new one-man show, "Casanova Takes a Bath," should go a long way toward rectifying that.

The show's title is meant in the idiomatic sense, which is precisely the sort of thing we've come to expect from Theater Oobleck, a company in its third decade that has made its reputation by freely noodling around in the cognitive muck of literature, pop culture and current events, and turning up specimens worth a spit-shine or two.

I suppose only a prankish thinker such as Isaacson (a trim, energetic performer with boyish dark curls) would find a way to link the exploits of Giacomo Casanova — the notorious 18th-century Venetian seducer with a serious gambling habit on the side — with these financial times by taking us down the path of stock market enlightenment (or rather, his own brand of enlightenment) by re-enacting portions of Casanova's memoirs.

In truth, much of what we hear from Isaacson is his equally florid and high-spirited comic reworking of Casanova's text into a Viagra-fueled econ lecture that illustrates the ways in which the schemes that felled Casanova have their equivalents in modern finance — particularly an absurdist betting strategy of perpetual doubling down that only works if one has an endless supply of money. "And if you think it is impossible to have unlimited capital, I got four words for you. Or two words, plus one hyphenated word: Goldman. Sachs. Bail-out." To which he adds: "If only the masters of finance had studied their 18th-century erotic literature."

Witty but long-winded, the show (which debuted earlier this year at the Rhinoceros Theater Festival) includes references to the BP oil spill, as well as the dubious number of sexual conquests attributed to Warren Beatty in author Peter Biskind's biography. Somehow it all makes sense, and yet the show frequently becomes rant-like, making the same points over and over. I suspect the piece needs a final section added on that would be a better culmination of thought and theatrics.

That shouldn't be too hard. Isaacson's appeal as a writer-performer is that he is simultaneously playful and intellectually engaged. As for why it is men, rather than women, who are primarily responsible for our recent economic collapse, "We'll have to wait for the sequel: 'Freud Takes a Bath.'"